Introduction
Disaster recovery as part of cloud computing services offers a less labour intensive and safer way to protect your organisational data. Instead of building an off-site facility with servers onto which you must manually transfer the data you wish to protect, you can store all of your data in the cloud and fully automate your backup and recovery procedures. Once your company starts to take advantage of cloud computing and storage services, you will gain access to a range of secure backup and recovery facilities that are far more appealing from a cost standpoint than conventional disaster recovery options.
How Cloud Disaster Recovery Differs from Traditional Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery in the cloud differs from conventional disaster recovery measures in a number of important, beneficial ways.
Cost
Before the widespread availability of cloud computing services, companies had to locate physical servers in remote locations, in order to protect their data from critical hardware failure. The costs associated with this approach to data backup and recovery are quite substantial: the cost of the servers and off-site infrastructure, must be added to the cost of the building in which this equipment is located. With cloud computing however, comes the ability to pay for storage and software as a service, which means your organisation can access the server space and connectivity it requires on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than having to use precious capital to build an off-site data backup and recovery facility.
Convenience
As mentioned earlier, the very nature of cloud computing and data storage makes it easy to automate backup and recovery procedures, obviating the need for your IT team to spend countless hours on manual data backup and equipment maintenance tasks. Furthermore, cloud storage is infinitely scalable, enabling you to increase or decrease your storage and associated costs as your needs change over time. The maintenance of the hardware and software that your data recovery strategy requires is handled by the company that provides your cloud computing services and is built into the price that you pay.
Multiple Backup Locations
A reputable cloud computing service provider will provide your company with the option to store critical data in multiple geographical locations, providing unrivalled protection against hardware and software failure. To replicate this model using conventional data recovery strategies would be prohibitively expensive for many companies but when paying for hardware and software as a service, it becomes a viable option for organisations of all sizes. Whether you are running a business as a sole trader or you have thousands of employees spread across the globe, a cloud data recovery solution will prove to be your safest and most economical choice.
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